


The Leslie Effect

by rikyl



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-11
Updated: 2011-11-11
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikyl/pseuds/rikyl
Summary: Freddy Spaghetti AU for this prompt: "Ben didn't exactly save the children's concert hoping it would get him laid but ... that's what happens anyway."Written for the old NBC kink meme on LJ.





	

“Mean Ben has a soft spot,” Leslie sing-songed, smiling up at him.

He grinned self-consciously, still giddy from the rush of what he’d done, more invested in her reaction than he’d realized he was going to be. “Mean Ben. Is that what you call me?”

She shook her head, bright curls bouncing in the sunlight, and he noticed she had a really nice laugh.

“Oh no … no no no.”

And the way she was looking at him just then was worth every penny he’d just shelled out to get Freddy Spaghetti into his car—just to have her stand beside him for a few moments, feeling like they were on the same side, bantering or possibly even—

“Come here,” she said, suddenly grabbing his hand and gently tugging him along with her.

The touch of her fingers was surprising, but he followed her unquestioningly, kind of floating, until they were out of sight behind the stage. Then she looked down at their linked hands, twining her fingers with his, and up at him again with a gentle searching look in those bright blue eyes.

“Come on, tell me why you really did this.”

The sound of obnoxious children’s music and shrill toddler voices mostly drowned her out, so he almost read her lips more than heard her words. And that meant staring at her mouth.

“Um … for the kids, like I said,” he fumbled, shifting his gaze to their feet. She was wearing Converse. “Just wanted to … do something … good, you know.”

Honestly, he didn’t know why he’d done it, but he suddenly knew it had something to do with her, and the effect she was having on him, and the desire he couldn’t shake to … he didn’t even know what he was trying to accomplish here. To fix things for her? To make something up to her?

She smiled at him skeptically—flirtatiously?—and a different sort of desire bubbled within him, one he hadn’t realized had been there. He hadn’t thought she liked him, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might even so much as have a chance, but here she was, and she was holding his hand, and ...

His face split into a smile, and the sun must have peeked out from behind a cloud just then, because he could feel the heat on the back of his neck. “I wanted to see you smile,” he admitted. It wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but it was … it was pretty much the gist of it.

Leslie seemed to like that, expressing her approval with the gentle caress of her thumb on his wrist. “Is that all you wanted?”

She was, she was totally flirting, he realized, and it was cute, it was so cute. He laughed quietly, a little amused, a little nervous, a little hopeful and exposed. “Somebody had to get you to stop singing,” he teased.

It was awkward, but pleasantly so. He was surprised at how easy this felt. Standing here with her in the May sunshine, he felt younger, lighter, filled with possibility. She just made him feel good, and he wasn’t sure how she did it.

“You know … there are other ways to stop a woman from singing,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him suggestively.

A breath caught in his throat. “Oh … oh yeah?”

Then she started, she actually started singing, softly, along with the children’s music that they could hear loud and clear from the other side of the backdrop.

“Vermicelli …” She guided his hand up to her waist, and it happily settled there against the smooth line of her hipbone.

“Orzo …” She stepped in a little closer to him, tipping her head up to bring it closer to his, and without even consciously recognizing what was happening, he bent down into her.

“Cannelo—”

His mouth reached hers halfway through the “oh” in canneloni, and she trailed off into a hum against his lips. And then they were kissing, and it was everything he thought it would be, except that he had never thought of kissing her, but if he had … it would have been just this soft, and just this sweet, and his hand was in her hair now, at the back of her neck, her mouth was opening against his …

And still somehow, in a distant corner of his mind, he was memorizing every detail of the moment: the mixture of cool air and hot sun, the smell of damp grass and popcorn, the sounds of laughter and clapping and amplifier feedback. He didn’t know why, but he knew, he was going to want to remember this.

When she broke the kiss, she stayed close, leaning against him, her hands inside his jacket in a way that felt shockingly familiar considering how little he still knew about her. It felt good, though, like they were meant to be there.

“Do you have anywhere to be for twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes?” he echoed blankly, mind still foggy from the intoxicating experience of kissing Leslie Knope. Backstage. At a children’s concert. Suddenly it occurred to him to look around, but no one else was on this side of the stage.

“Twenty minutes, just, approximately. To go somewhere. With me.”

“Somewhere?” he echoed again, still struggling to stay in the moment and focus on her voice, not her mouth, but the words that were coming out of it.

Her hands started to slip out of his jacket and doubt flickered across her features, like her confidence was wavering, and Ben instinctively leaned in and tightened his arm around her waist. Instead of letting go, her fingers changed course and knotted into his shirt.

“It’s just that … this is probably not the best place to … and I really want to … ”

She trailed off mysteriously, biting her lower lip, and Ben wasn’t confident enough to fill in any blanks. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy women just came onto, and this wasn’t … but they were somehow still holding onto each other, he really wanted to kiss her again, really wanted to …

And anyway, he’d already been reckless once today, so he might as well …

“Okay,” he agreed, unsure of what he’d just said yes too, but before he could think it though any more, she untangled herself from him, catching her hand on his elbow to make sure he followed her.

He let her lead, staying half a step behind, enjoying the moments when she turned her head slightly toward him and beamed at him secretively, like they were a couple kids sneaking around, on an adventure of some sort. They started to cross the street, and he raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Ann lives here. She’s at the concert,” Leslie explained simply.

The door was unlocked apparently, and they went inside. Ben glanced around this stranger’s living room, feeling like an intruder, more and more uncertain about what he was here for. But Leslie obviously knew her way around. She tugged him down a hallway, then abruptly dropped his hand and popped through one of the doors.

A bathroom. Ben stopped short in the doorway, taking a quick step back so she could close the door and have some privacy. Instead, she started rifling through the medicine cabinet, murmuring to herself.

“Come on, Ann, come on, Ann, Ann, Ann, come on, Ann, Ann, Ann, Ann …”

“Who is … Ann?”

“Bingo!” Leslie cried victoriously, spinning toward him happily.

Quickly, she pushed him toward another doorway, a gleam in her eyes, and this one led to a bedroom. A stranger’s bedroom, in a stranger’s house …

But they were already inside, and Leslie was shutting the door and turning the lock, clutching whatever she’d taken from the medicine cabinet in one hand. He wasn’t bold enough to venture a guess on that.

“Hey,” she said softly, smiling, looking up at him with dark hooded eyes.

“Hey,” he said, smiling tentatively, conscious of how hard his heart was beating in his chest, extremely aware that there was a bed not two feet behind him. Not that they were going to …

Leslie was still looking at him with that same small, expectant smile, but neither one of them had moved toward the other. Ben cleared his throat. “So … why are we …”

She looked less sure of herself for a moment, and he thought maybe she hadn’t thought this through any more than he had. But then she licked her lips, and glanced at his, and he had to remind himself to breath for a moment. In. Out.

Somehow that wasn’t helping.

“I just thought … it would be nice … to get away. I really want to … to … ”

“To?” What was he doing? He shouldn’t make her say it. He should just move closer. He should just kiss her again.

“To … thank you …”

“Thank me?” She stepped a little closer, but somehow his muscles still weren’t following his commands, and he didn’t meet her halfway.

“Thank you for … what you did. It was really nice, what you did. So thank you.”

She was even closer now somehow, and his arm twitched out toward her at the same time as one of her arms reached out toward him. It was jerky and awkward for a moment, but suddenly something gave way, his arms found her, as hers circled him, and they were wrapped in an embrace all over again, mouths crashing into each other more decisively than before.

It was more intense this time, in the darkened bedroom, away from the sunlight and the noise and the rest of the world. She kissed him hungrily, hands moving up and down his back, pulling his shirt out of his pants, slipping inside to rake her fingers against his skin.

After roaming aimlessly, tentatively exploring her curves, his own hands landed on her hips, reflexively pulling her toward him. Groaning into his mouth, she pressed her whole body against him, and he responded immediately, hardening against her.

Startled by the intensity, Ben pulled back slightly. “Um …” Her mouth moved to find his again, he felt himself being drawn back in, but stopped short again.

“Leslie.” His voice came out unexpectedly low and rough. “I didn’t do what I did so that you would … so that we would … I mean, I like you, but I never expected …”

Leslie furrowed her brow, eyes flicking up to meet his but still mostly focused on his mouth. “Of course not … why would you expect that. That’s not what I thought.”

She brought her lips up to his again.

Cotton candy. That was what she tasted like.

“Then why …” he kissed her again mid-sentence, like it was already a habit. “…why are we here?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” Whatever was in her hand, she shifted it to her mouth, holding it between her teeth while she pushed his jacket off his shoulders and started to undo his tie.

A condom wrapper.

“Wow,” Ben sighed, his eyes widening in panic. “Okay, um …”

She shrugged out of her blazer and took the wrapper out of her mouth, smiling up at him.

“So … you like me?”

Ben felt the back of his neck heat up, even though they were definitely out of the sun. “I … yeah, I, I do. Um … ” Dammit. This was so inappropriate. “You know I can’t … this wouldn’t change anything. I still have to cut 32 percent of the budget no matter what …”

She shut him up with a forceful kiss. “Stop that, Ben. I know, but, just, not now. Just … for a little bit, enjoy the fact that we provided a service, okay? Enjoy it.” As she smiled seductively at him, her hand moved to his crotch, starting to rub the length of him through his khakis. “See, doesn’t that feel good?”

He closed his eyes a moment and groaned, because yes, that did feel good, her hand felt really good.

“That … that …” She caught his lower lip, sucking it between hers for a moment before meeting his eyes. “Providing services? Is what turns you on?”

“Mmmmm-hmmmm,” she hummed, her hand sliding hard against him again. “You?”

Ben swallowed. “I think … yes … I’m finding … that to be very sexy.”

Wow. This was so not where he expected to be an hour ago when he tracked down that … the guy who … with the guitar …

He couldn’t remember, it wasn’t important, because now they were making out again, seriously making out. While his hands slid up her body to find the sides of her breasts, she started backing him toward the bed. He reached it sooner than expected, falling backward when his calves crashed into the edge.

She shimmied out of her pants and climbed on top of him, giggling. For a moment, he was mesmerized by this beautiful blonde woman, hovering over him—straddling him—so full of life and passion. She stopped laughing, and their eyes met, like a meeting of souls, and it occurred to him fleetingly how turned on he really was by the fact that she could be turned on by a job well done, by making people happy. It was wonderful. She was—

“We don’t have a lot of time until the concert’s over,” she murmured, pulling off his pants, hurrying things along.

Tossing them to the floor, she lowered her body over his again, and he leaned up just enough to press his lips against her neck. She sighed, and he licked his way down to the V of her blouse, palming her breasts and fumbling with the buttons so that he could have better access. As she shrugged out of that too, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and rolled her under him.

For a moment Ben just stared: her yellow curls against the purple bedspread, her flushed cheeks that almost matched the dark pink of her bra, her chest rising and falling with each hurried breath.

“We should hurry,” she said breathlessly.

She was right, he knew, and yet … he found himself wishing he could take his time, exploring her body, just enjoying her. Being with her was fun, and he didn’t want to let this go so fast.

“Sorry,” he said softly, belatedly stripping off his dress shirt as he held himself over her. “I don’t usually do this. I mean, not, casually, like this.” He glanced around the room, to emphasize the weirdness of it all.

“Me neither,” she confessed reassuringly, then giggled. “It’s probably a bad idea, isn’t it.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he admitted, smiling down at her.

But she reached up and pulled him down to her anyway. He kissed her deeply, all too happy to be saying yes to Leslie Knope. Their tongues entwined as they shifted around to scoot out of the scant remainder of their clothing. Then she paused just long enough to retrieve the condom, which had at some point landed on the night stand.

Once that was all sorted, her legs opened under him, thighs firmly circling his hips, and there was nothing left but to push into her. She gasped as he pressed against her opening, arms tightening around his back, and he dropped an affectionate kiss to her forehead before thrusting all the way in.

“Oooooh, Leslie,” he involuntarily sighed and paused, overwhelmed by the euphoric feeling of being inside her, encompassed by her warmth, being with her here at all.

“Come on, Ben,” she breathed, bucking her hips against his impatiently. He pulled almost all the way out and thrust into her again, causing her to moan and arch her back, so that he ended up buried so deep inside her that it took his breath away again.

As he started to move rhythmically, really getting into it, he couldn’t help but also be fascinated by the woman underneath him. Of course Leslie Knope approached sex with as much proactive passion as she seemed to have for everything else.

She didn’t just lay there and let him lead; she was constantly writhing against him and adjusting her position: planting her feet to thrust herself more forcefully against him, or raising her legs up high so that he could bury himself inside her more deeply, even holding onto his hips to affect the rhythm or the angle. She was unabashedly noisy, too, moaning and babbling and letting him know when something felt particularly good. He couldn’t remember being with someone who was so responsive.

Ben was currently having sex with her, and all he could think of was how much more he wanted to have sex with her, all the things they could do if they had the time.

As he was fantasizing about what it would be like to be under her, or behind her, or in the shower with her, she started to come—it was clear by the way she closed her eyes, getting somehow quieter and more still, then louder and more frantic, and suddenly he was very much in the moment again, thrusting into her as hard and fast as he could and letting himself go as he watched her come down.

Afterward, he felt like he could have stayed with her there happily all afternoon, all day, all summer, but of course real life intervened. Leslie was way too quickly sliding out of his arms and throwing her clothes back on, and he did the same, casting uncertain glances at her as she reverted from wanton lover to government employee. It wasn’t nearly drastic enough of a transformation to quiet the desire that had somehow not been tamped down by the sex. He wanted more, he wanted … god, he still wasn’t sure.

To make her smile.

She did smile at him, but it was as she was leaving. “I have to get back. I want to be there to thank everyone.”

He grinned at her, not at all surprised that she’d be wanting to get back to work.

“Yeah, you should do that.” He was still fumbling with his tie, trying to get his fingers and the fabric to cooperate. “You should go ahead. I’ll let myself out in a second.”

Flashing him one last smile, she was gone. Ben made quick work of his tie and followed a minute later, startled to almost run into Chris Traeger on his way out.

“Ben! There you are. I was told this is where the bathroom is?”

Quickly, Ben ran a hand through his hair, hoping no one could write an inappropriate song about it.

“What? Oh, right, um … I guess so.”

He still had no idea whose house this was, but it seemed better just to agree.

As he let himself in, Chris turned around in the doorway. “Good news, by the way! Leslie Knope is going to be replacing Ron Swanson on the task force. Isn’t she delightful?”

Ben stared, imagining trying to do his job with Leslie in the room. He believed her that she hadn’t had an ulterior motive today, and he certainly wasn’t going to take advantage of his position to …

But for all their good intentions, there was no denying she had a certain effect on him.

“Great,” was all Ben said, trying to keep the uncertainty out of his voice.

But then he turned around and caught the last remnants of the concert, heard the clapping and the happy children’s voices, and couldn’t help but smile that he had helped make that happen.

Leslie was right. It felt good.


End file.
